Quotes by Albert Hammond, Jr.

I'll write lines or words in a notepad. You work on little things and little parts; sometimes they turn into bigger songs.

I don't know how to explain it, but when you're working on something constantly, and you're digging in deep, things kind of fall in, and you grab them, and you're like, 'That one!' and 'That thing!' and it starts to build something right.

The weird thing is, I used to skate in front of, like, 5,000 people and I was never nervous, but the first time I got on stage, there were four people there and I vomited.

I don't think I found out what I liked to wear until I was, like, 18.

It's so funny because when I talk about fashion and menswear designers, it's really like a small percentage of my head. I don't mind talking about it, but I always worry that it's gonna seem to the outside world that that's all I think about.

If I have an audience, I'd like to make music for my whole life. But it's not really up to me.

In terms of growing as a songwriter, I'm just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that's where I've grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don't think you ever do. There's always room to grow.

Two people happy with themselves can be exceptionally happy together.

I was raised to respect women, and I really like them to be strong, independent, and have their own identity. My parents are still together, and I grew up with a lot of love, and I feel that kids imitate what they have at home.

You really get your sense of women, to begin with, from your mom.

I do believe in 'forever' in terms of relationships. There's something really amazing about being with someone for a long time and really knowing each other in that way. They end up becoming your closest friend.

You watch movies and see bands you like and copy them and see what you can hold. I mean, it's all down to how you hold what you wear.

I've always had Paul Smith wallets for some reason.

I actually use women's perfume -- I have since I was a kid. It's called Anais Anais, from Rachael. It smells like a beautiful woman and a bouquet of flowers. I use that and Right Guard deodorant.

Ties were always my thing. When I was 18, on Sunday, when everyone was taking off for a casual day, I'd wear a suit to go have brunch.

When they write a bad review, and you agree with it, that's the worst feeling. When you know you've done what you wanted and the best you could and you love the outcome, then you look at everything differently. Not everyone's going to love everything you do.

If I worked as a waiter, I'd go home and write songs and record them. I'd have to. It's the only thing I know how to do. It's the only thing I can do.

I feel like that's what being creative is: It's you bouncing with emotion and what you capture in those bounces. Accept where you are and use it.

Sometimes you wanna be James Bond, and sometimes you wanna be Marlon Brando until you realize you can't be either!

I would like to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. I would hope that by the time I die I could have learned from the years of living and hand something down.

I think the last book I cried in was Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I don't shy away from crying, though. I actually really enjoy being moved like that.

I feel like I always describe myself as a late bloomer. My first album, in my mind, was that I had a few songs I needed to take from incomplete demos to working with someone else and finishing them.

When you put on music, just feel it; it's a different sense. I walk around with music in, and it can just change my world in seconds.

My personality can be extreme in all ways, even in positive ways; I've learned that.

After boarding school in Switzerland, at, like, 14 or 15, my life clicked, and I just realized, 'I don't want to be like anyone around me at my school. I don't think the world revolves around money.'

I just looked like there was only one thing I could do: be in a band. It looked like I was already successful, basically. Which is what I wanted to do when I was 16. I just felt like if you did that, aesthetically you would just draw people who were doing the same thing.

Guided By Voices was huge when I was 16. Then I got into the Beatles, then classical music, Beethoven.

Things that excite me are these four different bands: Wire, with a song called 'Champs,' Misfits, with a song called 'Hybrid Moments,' R. Stevie Moore, and Wipers 'Wait A Minute.'

I feel like you listen your whole life, so when you are in the studio, your references are all the songs and music that you know. It just depends on where the songs are going and what attracts you at the moment.

When starting a project, your influences are the things around you. It doesn't mean you have to sound like it or look like it or anything. It's just something new, and your curiosity becomes enthralled by it.

I grew up with The Beatles, Bob Marley and Talking Heads. I like the melody-with-rhythm aspect of music -- there's so much to discover still.

There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn't understand it or it was too long, there's still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it.

I feel like my strength is surrounding myself with people who have an ear for things, and then they play it for me. I'm always looking; my ear is always open.

When you write songs, you're writing little bits here, little bits there.

Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' is where I got the title 'Momentary Masters.'

Little moments of excitement shape the sound of a record. You don't have anything, and then you start to have little parts that give you the energy to move forward because you start to see something.

The Strokes, you bond when you're 18, and you're friends. The feeling's different. When all of us get into a room, we feel like the same people from before. We weren't anybody; we were just hanging out. It's hard to understand if you're not in a band. You're one-fifth.

I feel like I can be a frontman; I feel like I have good songs.

Change isn't a scary thing. It's constant and inevitable.

Rock and roll's relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed.

I've got my advanced scuba diving license. I'm playing tennis and exercising. I ride my bike everywhere. I've been finding new things. I've been more creative in music and doing different videos. And just meeting different people and being around and present. I'm wonderful when I'm just on nothing.

I think that's one of the greatest gifts you get if you're successful at something like music or film or photography -- any of the arts -- you can sit there and think. It's so much fun to sit there and think and wonder about the world and the universe.

You know when you become friends with someone, you don't even remember? When you weren't friends? You're just kinda like, 'When were we not friends? When I met you, weren't we just already friends?' I have the same thing with the Strokes guys.

When someone's really good at encapsulating human emotion and putting it out in a form that can reach a variety of people, that's going to have a big effect when he's no longer there.

I like rock music that has melody, but it also makes you wanna get up and dance.

When you get together in a group, it becomes like a family, with the different personalities and the politics that comes with being in a band. It's different than bringing something in by yourself.

When people ask me for playlists, I always put in 'Moonlight Sonata' because it is my favorite song. I play it all the time.

Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.